December 2012

December 30, 2012

I didn't expect Django Unchained to be so intense. I expected it to be wicked. I expected it to be glib. I expected it to dialog its way through improbabilities. It was wicked bloody and profane but Django Unchained is not a buddy movie. It is the first of its kind - a SouthWestern - a full throated shoot 'em up American drama with Wagnerian resonances. It might not ultimately be director Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece but it is right now.

Say what you will about Tarantino; you cannot say that he makes movies for kids. When I say kids I mean Owen Wilson. For the past n years we have been assaulted by the next generation of male leading actors who have struggled to make themselves some fraction of the man that Ben Affleck has just barely managed to affect - a whole troop of boy band graduates all trying to be the next Ben Stiller. It has taken a lot of the fun out of going to the movies for me, and was made all the more poignant by the emergence of Daniel Craig. Funny now that I think about it, I wondered where Tom Hanks wandered off to after The Road To Perdition. The bottom line is that there haven't been many movies for middle age men that weren't somewhat escapist in a way that just wasn't quite serious enough or dunked the protagonist in such deep shit that the every act required blunt force. Somewhere between Cowboys and Aliens and No Country for Old Men, we all got left out in the cold, surviving on DeNiro, Washington, Fiennes and Clive Owen. It's one of the reasons I returned to literature - there aren't many American movies with men dealing with real life and death situations, it leaves us with weak philosophy - the philosphy of Vince Vaughn, which never quite gets beyond the reality of a bad divorce. Hell, we can do that on our own Vince. It's no wonder we've developed a hunger for the depravity of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. And there is my take on American dramatic film as it is continually remade for youthful disposable income.

Ahh but we are approaching more fically constrained times. So we need a little period work to get our heads out of the boom book clack reality of 50 Cent rappers whose value has deflated over the past decade. Yes there was a moment for gangsta manhood. It peaked at Clockers. Well, Set It Off, and then it was over and done with Training Day and from that moment there would never be another Gangsta movie. Somehow the Farelly Brothers got into our bloodstream (and Fishburn got sidetracked into Morpheus for a decade) and something went poof. Fortunately Seth McFarlane and Seth Rogan have not completely taken over Hollywood. Thank you Quentin. We still have at least one filmmaker grown up enough to do Nazis and Slavery. Now I'm looking forward to the moment when he decides that he has to do a Vietnam film. But, you know, slavery is good.

Now if you asked me a month ago when all the dainties were weeping in the streets about the absence of Frederick Kick Ass Douglass (read blacks as agents in their own liberation) from Speilberg's courtly drama, I snarled that all they really wanted to see was some black man killing some white men (for money). And you can bet your ass that Tarantino is going to make all that money. And now that QT has ripped the roof of that meme and soaked the silver screen with the blood of righteous retribution, the complaint will squiggle off into another boohooey direction. Or so I predict.

Here's the thing. This movie is going to be a huge success in all sorts of dimensions and I know that you will have to search to the ends of the earth to find anyone who does not sympathize with Foxx's Django. This Christmas season is witnessing (predictably past the end of the world, according to Mayans) what a generation of black radicals believed with all their hearts, souls and minds that would never happen in America. A blockbuster movie where a black man single-handedly, brutally slaughters dozens of white men and white audiences cheer. And there's a black President. Did I say brutally slaughter? This is a Tarantino movie.

Black radicals aren't stupid, just full of shit. So the trick is exactly how they're going to twist the interpretation so they can continue to pretend that there are no Republicans in those ovating audiences coast to coast. Somehow they will come up with a narrative that will twist the fact that white people will thoroughly enjoy this film against them. Rule Number One: Never let Whitey off the hook. And of course without their collaborating Uncle Tims, (as in Tim Wise) they'd be out on a limb. But there will be a white Progressive mezzo-soprano chorus joining the whine to come, indicting all of a piece.

I'm going here because I think it is inevitable that some fraction of America, the self-pitying and/or idiot fraction requires a movie like Django Unchained to ask itself self-flagellating questions on race. I'm rather surprised that it didn't do so when "Black Snake Moan" came out in March of 2007. Maybe the film was overshadowed by Shaquanda Cotton. You know how it is, some Americans go from zero to outrage in 5.3 seconds. you just never know which seconds. So it's actually possible that... naw. It's impossible for any black cultural critic to pass up. This movie is way too big, the subject far too direct, the implications much to clear to say this is not a story about slavery and race. I mean Leo DiCaprio is quoting racist phrenology right there on the screen. It doesn't get much more potent than that.

But then what was this movie about anyway? The answer is also simple and straightforward. It is about Django running through hellfire to free his wife, by any means necessary. And of course the film is marvelously entertaining because he's got the skills and wits to do so, and eventually does. His able sponsor, the crafty and wordly German Dr. Schultz gets Django rolling downhill at the outset of the film. The two pick up steam as bounty hunters in that America that had still not as of yet bloodied itself en mass of the future of that particular institution.

As a rumnation on slavery, I found the film's matter of factness, refreshingly direct and unsentimental. It was all rather credible to me, and this is the sort of cinema verite that I was hoping for before I plunked down my cash at the Arclight. Tarantino's touch is deft. There were only two things that I imagined in the entire film to be anachronistic. First, and probably my biggest gripe with the film is Tarantino's choice of music. The soundtrack here is disjointed and rarely worked nicely with the action on screen. You could always snap into the realization that this is modern music that doesn't quite fit thematically with what's happening on screen. This was never joltingly so, but annoyingly so. The second thing that seemed out of place was the quality of stitching in the garments worn by Django, and I'm trying to imagine that the sunglasses I saw were period pieces. Speaking of stitches, you have never seen in your life and probably never will see a scene that makes you laugh at KKK night riders like the one in Django. It is straight out hilarious.

I never saw Ray, so despite all of the critical acclaim, I don't believe I have ever seen Jamie Foxx act. I did see Collateral and I did see Law Abiding Citizen. Tell you the truth, I liked him better in Bait than in either of those films. Moreover, I think Jamie Foxx in person is probably more interesting than any role he has had on the big screen with the one possible exception of Any Given Sunday. And no I had zero interest in him as the street musician. So yes quite honestly I think Hollywood has really been flummoxed as to what to do with that black man. At least he's managed to keep his head above the Cedric the Entertainer level, which is more than can be said for most of the black actors Foxx's age. So now the ball is in Omar Epps' court.

Sam Jackson has done what only he could do. I put him as the anchoring picture for this blog post because his character has transcended every HNIC of the plantataion house that has ever been recorded on film. I might even get deep into that discussion with the theorists, but Jackson was brilliantly malevolent and vindictive in the role. Splendid casting - in so many ways this movie might have failed, getting Stephen wrong would not only have killed it, but shot it in the knees and left it to rot. There simply is no other possible actor for that role.

December 28, 2012

To all my atheist, scientific friends who can't stomach the 'denial' of global warming. Speaking for myself and the friends of mine who consider themselves conservative, our primary dissent is based on economic reality. To wit, you cannot force the Second World to not want cars and plastics and all those industrial processes that generate greenhouse gasses. Folks like me say that there will not be a political solution to 'global climate change', there will be an economic response which finds your idealism naive and wishful.

Into that mix of realpolitik consider the following video, consider a little touch of Sartre, and ask yourself why anybody should really care to support your terrafoming fantasies.

December 25, 2012

Following an interestingly provocative and somewhat laughable YouTube of the opening dance number from Hair I decided to buy the movie and play it for the family Christmas movie. We didn't discuss it because everybody resisted watching it until the very last hour. So I'm not sure about the reactions of the junior Bowens other than "That was a cool movie but the music sucked."

Regardless of that, I found the extent to which it must have fascinated and shocked audiences rather useful over time. But nothing came through so clearly and painfully as the dialog between two women somewhere in the final third of the film. It is the conversation that begins with the scene between the mother of Lafayette's child and Lafayette who now calls himself Hud and then culminates between she and Annie Golden.

The woman who is given no name in the film other than "Hud's Fiancee" responds:

How can peopleBe so heartlessHow can peopleBe so cruelEasy to be hardEasy to be cold

How can peopleHave no feelingsYou know I'm hung up on youEasy to be proudEasy to say noEspecially peopleWho care about strangersWho care about evilAnd social injustice

Do you onlyCare about the bleeding crowdHow about a needing friendI need a friendHow can they ignore their friendsEasy to give inEasy to help outWho say they care aboutSocial injustice

Blam. There is the entirety of Mrs Jellyby from Dickens' Bleak House. I found the scene in the film absolutely poignant. There is much to be said about the sexual revolution right in that scene. But it goes further to this culminating dialog:

I'm not into any heavypreference trip...like who the father is.I don't care.I think they're both beautiful.Don't you?

But how can you not careabout that?If a woman carries a child, don't youthink she should know who the father is?

I admit that I have this dilemma.But it will be resolved real soon.It's not like a big crisis or anything.It's not like a world war.I don't knowwhat you're so uptight about.

I fell in love with someone.We had a child,and we were gonna get married.That's why I'm uptight.

- Yeah?

- And you're holding it up!

I'm not holding it up.You don't see the way it is.This is really a great thingthat's happened to all of us.Everybody's really happy about it.The guys are really happy.I think it would be greatif you could be happy about it too.

- You're crazy.

- Yeah, I'm crazy.We're all crazy.Let's shake on it.

Let's not.

Blam again!

What's interesting about Hair in retrospect is the extent to which the charisma of the lead hippie is completely and understandably compelling. What's difficult to believe is how simple minded so many people must have been (& peasants are (?)) to take the weight of that charisma, a few drugs, costumes and street performance art into something capable of overturing the order of a great nation, even at its most insecure moment.

I cannot help but think that Hair signals the premise of the Age of Aquarius, completely and fully realized in youth culture and alternative culture in America. But there is absolutely no question in my mind that this rebellion occurered within the context of a privileged and spoiled social context, for blacks as much as for whites. All everyone wanted to do was stick their noses up at the wealthy, while appropriating their wealth whenever it seemed convenient to them. If Hair had any basis in reality whether art followed life or the other way 'round, I can most certainly feel the contempt, cynicism and hypocrisy of those Boomers who have turned against the defining creation of their generation. In one fell two hour swoop, I understand.

It helps that this weekend I have been listening closely to Steppenwolf and to Simon & Garfunkel.

There can be no question that the chaos of the time gave birth to the necessary confusion required for a complete break of faith of the mis-reckoned or misunderstood inheritance of the post-war era. I cannot help but contrast this the seriousness taken by the characters in the film The Good Shepherd. It wasn't merely some willy nilly trust fund babies this rebellion was against, but those who decided to carry the good fight into the next generation with conviction and composure which belied their own uncertainty. Dangerous peguins indeed. But the counter culture was not a complete counter-strike, it was a co-dependent howl. People who forget how to work and forget how to raise children and only sacrifice for the spontanaeity of the moment... well, they make for great dancers, lovers and friends but civilization requires much, much more.

It leaves me with yet another doubt as to whether those who invented the terms 'human rights' and 'social justice' outside of the Catholic Social Teaching knew what they were talking about at all. On the question of free love, there is no doubt in my mind that those counterculturalists were on the wrong side of history and reason.

December 24, 2012

I am beginning to accept some things about myself, namely that my efforts to become what I have wanted to be have been successful. I am a writer. I have written what I wanted to write. I am a systems architect. I have built what I could build. I have all the pieces and parts in my mind, and my mind remains capable.

I only struggle against sentimentality - to know the difference and maintain the proper perspective between that which was directly responsible for my growth and those principles which those actions served. It is this distinction I express in my reconciliation with those who now wrestle with middle age which I have begun to see the end of.

If I had postponed life any longer to read what I might have to become as wise as I consider myself today, I would have only had the shadow of the family life I have today. I would have been more ascetic and more debauched, and moreover would have looked at my own extended family with much less sympathy. But this combination of choices I have indeed taken have made me so much less cranky and obstinate than I would have been otherwise. And so I see a reconciliation coming - the kind of reconciliation that is the practical experience of a true father.

Most of all, and just recently, I realize that I do possess some power of mind that is extraordinary, and it is not a mere combination of quirks that distance me from the people of the world. I do not discount those quirks that exist, but I now see the extent to which my mind's discipline is real - my mental ability and desire forming a reinforcing loop driven by curiosity to form complete understanding - and the patience to take that in steps and pieces.

What I have missed is only the society and direction of the university path, a significant enough disabler. Were it not for the web, I would have been forced to pay such dues as academics require.

--

Towards reconciliation I recognize that my combination of gifts and efforts have made me both thinker and overthinker. My own satisfaction requires much and in seeking the difference between the good, the great and the world historical I have finally validated the broad perspective I have sought. In realizing so many others would not be so dedicated, I have found both my value and my limits. And it is true that the love of my wife has allowed me this luxury - of composing at my keyboards rather than washing dishes or taking out the trash. For my refinements there is that debt - ever reconciled.

So I truly believe that I am philosophic, that my disinterest allows for the sort of useless virtue of objectivity. I recognize the nexus of action and thought that defines interest for all the world. I also recognize how quickly the world changes dashing those nexii to worthlessness next to the principled value of disinterested objectivity. And so I offer my gifts in the spirit of the Way of the Servant.

In this way it is the end of Cobb as it has been for the past couple years. Doubtless it was my new work and my appreciation of Bloom and Dickens that proved to be the catalyst. Cobb the blog remains and is permanent, but requires a new look. The look, I think will signal my own unity of pen and sword, personal and professional, philosophical and philanthropic, expository and inquisitive.

I see all of you as men of good will. There is plenty enough room in this world, a world without end. Invert the divisions. Let us enter the world of multiplication..

December 21, 2012

Last night I had a stunning dream. I was the Incredible Hulk. More to the point, I was Dr. Bruce Banner and I chose to be the Hulk.

My psychology was that of a werewolf. I was transformed into a creature of the hunt. I became bestial and ran quite powerfully on all fours. One of the most remarkable aspects of this dream was how realistic it felt to me to be using muscles in my back and stomach to spring and release my arms and legs to their positions. The rhythmic flexing was so much more involved than the leg-bound work of human running - it was so much more joyful than the greatest pleasure of running upright. I understood how animals derived pleasure from simply being animated, but most importantly I tasted the bloodlust.

It was in this early part of the dream that I found myself (in my old neighborhood of course) in the business of attacking some other creature with my savage jaws. I was totally captivated and 100% committed to destroying him. It was, in my mind, another wolf and I envied, feared and despised him. As he came at me, I visualized him in slow motion - a pencil drawing flip-book of a cartoon on a white background. I saw him in moderate detail, as that of a cel-shaded animation without the coloring. As he came I looked at his every aspect, but especially his teeth, jaws, throat and genitals. He was reduced to strengths and weaknesses which I evaded and attacked respectively. As the battle sped up into real-time, the colors, sounds, smells, sensations and effects became vivid. In a moment's time I stood over the bloody dismembered carcass of the wolf I destroyed - the wolf that might have been the Alpha Wolf, the wolf that was me - the only wolf that could be. I am the wolf. I am *the* wolf. There is no other, I cannot stand another. And then I ran.

Running I felt my musculature expand and contract. I felt the power and I tasted the blood and I remembered the guts of my foe. And I realized that I was intelligent and human and my gait was not wolf-like but gorilla-like. And so I imagined myself as a gorilla and something similar happened. I saw a gorilla in front of me with extraordinarily powerful arms, chest and back. But he was not facing me and I destroyed him from the blindside. And yet the human part of me surfaced questioning my rationale. Why are you being so savage? Why do you find pleasure in this killing?

My answer was that of curiosity fulfilled. I recall specifically answering. If you could, wouln't you? Wouldn't you desire the experience? If I said 'brain on the sidewalk' in two seconds I have invented something you have never actually seen. You can imagine it, but have you seen it? Have you done it? I have seen it because I have caused brain to spatter on the sidewalk. I am more than just stories. I am *the* beast.

And then I became The Hulk.

From my old neighborhood now greasy with entrails and fly riddled body parts I was transported into the dark future - the post-apocalyptic city with its mysterious powers, its pandemic devastation, its huddling survivors. Every street was asphalt upheaved as unseen forces ripped through them. It was City 17 at night. It was alien-invaded and abandoned by honor, it cried out for superheroism. I was The Hulk, I sought out the evil forces and I smashed.

I smashed them and collapsed the buildings where they hid. They were faceless, nameless enemies of humanity and I was the celebrated champion of the darkened human civilization. I explained myself. Yes I am The Hulk but I'm playing him differently. I am in control of what I have become because I love the anger. I love the destructive capacity, I love being the beast and I am Dr. Bruce Banner. I am the intellectual as I smash. I smash what is wrong, what is stupid and it only requires a small bit of intelligence to see that. I am not surviving to be that which I destroy, no - I am not the Alpha Wolf, I retain the will to destroy but I follow humanity's purpose often at the expense of humanity's own foolish creations. This worthless building, for example. Hulk Smash!

I calmed down and spoke in the patient tones of an NPR radio host. I explained that I am the new Hulk and I will play it this way. That was my dream last night.

You know I heard it again. Some genuine, serious, concerned intelligent *bonehead* thought of another way to stop school shootings. It was literally, tax guns away.

Here's where my mind went.

All you people can think to do is vote. You are so socially inept and inconsequential that you can't convince your own neighbors or anyone else. Instead you must gin up a political position based on your interpretation of reality and cram it down everyone else's throat through the force of law.

If such people were in feudal Japan, they would be arguing about how things were going to change when *their* Daimyo made Shogun.

If such people were in feudal Europe, they would be arguing about how things were going to change when *their* Lord became King.

But such people are in America, and so they are arguing about how things will change when their Facebook meme becomes 501c3 and they fund a university study that a congressman sponsors into legislation that is picked up by the networks, and re-emerges over the next 8 years until their presidential candidate makes it a campaign promise that gets signed into some law with an acronym or a little girl's name.

December 16, 2012

Once again I am kicking myself for not having read something many years ago and just getting around to it today. This time I'm speaking of Issac Asimov's Foundation.

It is particularly poignant reading the book at this moment as I am becoming the asshole Hari Seldon must have seemed in the story. I don't sense ultimate collapse. Well, let me qualify this all out for those of you who are like I was a week ago - ignorant of the Foundation.

Asimov starts with a principle I too subscribe to which is that small things are unpredictable and large things have more momentum and are thus more predictable. I think of this in terms of mass, energy and information. They all have inertia. Based on this principle, the smartest man of his generation, Hari Selden predicts that all of human civilization, starting with its central imperial planet will inevitably collapse into utter destruction in 500 years. He thus, with his great intuitive and mathematical skills, engineers a scheme to save humanity from itself in the the form of sending 30,000 men of science and their families to a distant world on the edge of the galaxy. This is the Foundation Project. The story moves on from there.

Thus far in the first book of this famous trilogy I am seeing how clever Asimov is in moving his story along the course of the inevitable crises picked by Selden as the large possibilities reduce the options of all protagonists to zero. No matter what the individual actors do, the large events have a certain scientific predestination. And yes he actually invokes matters of science as religion (which I have called 'scientism' here at Cobb) and all of the gnarley implications of predestination.

As part of my own Stoicism and what has been revealed to me through my Peasant Theory, I find myself uniquely aligned with what Asimov was on about. (and I continue) especially as I am becoming the asshole Hari Seldon must have seemed in the story- in particular because I am completely without tears and exclamations at the recent murders in Connecticut. What seems funny to me at the moment is to juxtapose this madness with the madness of Benghazi. Perhaps the perpetrator was outraged at some tasteless parody video on YouTube. I have gotten on the nerves of several associates online because I don't believe that anything should be attempted on matters of gun control and in fact believe that nothing will be done, because to be outraged at the death of these children in particular and consequently impelled to action implies precisely the lack of depth and perception required to undertake such a task.

People don't suddenly become intelligent and capable of proper judgment when it comes to these matters, there's too much inertia. To attach emotionally to the subject (misperceived as one of gun control) is to implicate oneself as incompetent.

At any rate, that's my cold-eyed analysis for today, and I'll be damned for it.

December 14, 2012

In America, we have shootings. We have serial killers and people who go ballistic. We have lots of things that nobody seems to want to count.

This morning and today I will hear people offer peoms, politics and prayers. I am as skeptical as Sting of poets, priests and politicians but De Doo Doo Doo is not all I want to say to you. I want you to be mindful of the numbers. Because today is another crisis for which a certain small but influential group of people would like to exploit as what they call a 'teachable moment'.

How this works is that they don't use numbers. They will say 'far too many'. They will say 'all too often'. They will say 'never quite enough'. They will say 'gone too far'. They will say 'beyond the limit'. They will do everything possible to make what's happening right now seem to be the biggest, the most important, the most extreme, or as Judy Jetson once put it, "the most ut". What is the most ut? Well, that's obvious, it is the utmost. And that is exactly what the poets, priests and politicians will seek from you, and they will make you feel selfish if you don't participate in their teachable moment.

These will be 'pro-actions' which will be done by pronouns, and it will all sound good until somebody says how much it will cost, you know, in actual accountable figures. As soon as the anti-gun lobby says exactly how much money they have raised, the game is up. Fortunately most of us can still be snapped into reason when the poetic rationale becomes translated into dollars. Of course the poets know this, which is why they tell you how much money the gun lobby spends - so you focus your analysis on Them and keep your hearts with Us.

People will offer prayers. It sounds nice until you try to quantify it. How much prayer should I offer when it's 27 dead? Is that a linear function? Should 'a moment' of silence do? If five minutes of silence was appropriate for 9/11, how many seconds for 27? Nobody will do the math.

Nobody will count the number of flags at half staff. Nobody will count the tears. Nobody will count the blessings of this not being Syria. Nobody will count the hours of airtime spent which paper over the other 17,000 murder victims who will have died this year, or the 30,000 suicides in this country alone. Nobody will count the refugees in Namibia or the number of ships in the Sea of Aden or the price of touchscreens in China. That kind of science is not popular because it starts clarify what is outside the Agenda. That kind of science is outside of the scope of the Narrative. Until it isn't - you know - until all the leaders of the Chatting Class cite another Harvard Study that tells us if red wine is good or bad for us as compared to the French, and that is the talking point of the day.

But the talking point of this day will be to unify the sense of outrage that none of us good people should have to endure in a country as wealthy and powerful and good as America the Beautiful.

But here's what I'm saying. Today of all days, be on the lookout for adjectives and adverbs. The people who find them to be their most powerful tools will be using them instead of numbers to get your attention. My bet says that we can expect 'senseless' and perhap a 'heinous' or two. 'Gawdawful' is rather popular. I guarantee that 'tragic' will be in the top three adverbs. And I gather that some people will even see this text as 'disrespectful'. Ahh but it is not. I challenge people to be a nation full of adults who are not led by men who weep at the obvious.

And now to my personal story.

Just the other night, there was an armed robbery somewhere in Moreno Valley which is a good 90 minute drive from where I live. But it was a short high speed chase for the cops and robbers to where my son attends university. One of the robbers decided he would hide out at CSUF among the students - maybe blend in and fool the cops. I discovered this crime in progress when I was somewhere in New Hampshire about 3024 miles away by car and 3 hours different in time zones. My news source told me that the school had been on lockdown for several hours meaning that all students should 'shelter in place'. I figure the drill is much like we see in movies, men in tactical garb going room by room and then shouting 'clear!' After four hours of looking for an armed robber, I'd be wanting a donut break if I was a SWAT officer. I know the students waiting for the drama to end were wanting one - I read the twitter feeds. It took about 3 hours to get a text from my son, who was OK. But he might have been shot. This is the third time my kids have been blanketed by scores of cops over such violent matters.

I should note with irony one of the tweets that was often repeated portrayed 'The militarization of our college campus' with a shot of these officers, along with complaints about the helicopters. All which come with the territory of politics - and disappar quickly when the first victim is shot dead (by someone other than the cops).

It's very difficult to get good information about when and where precisely people are, what their skill levels are and who is safe and who is in danger. All the texting and Instagramming of the masses lacks the precision of the kind of radio traffic we remember hearing between Eagle and Houston during the Space Age. Most people don't know the difference between Roger and Wilco, and we should not expect that to change. The point is, even when you want precision and science and facts, (like is my son dead or alive right this minute?) you can't hardly get what you want. So it's frustrating to hear the standard litany of adverbs and adjectives from the local standup newscaster. Just as often you don't get what you need. Until your son shows up - or not.

When it comes to the facts, you're on your own.

I know enough about personal tragedy to understand that sympathy is due and small gestures matter. I also know that all the sympathetic language from the anonymous public does not. But what I'm thinking about today is the extent to which people are seduced into making their sentiments into law without looking at the hard, cold facts, and how much they are coming to expect that this is how democracy should work.

December 10, 2012

By some strange coincidence of events, I found myself watching the Today Show on NBC this morning and the game show they were plugging tonight. It is the cruelest, most dramatic and spine tingling game show I have ever seen.

All I have to say is that they couldn't have planned a better first show. It was devastating.

Basically you take four people and you let them choose a gift of some unknown value. They can keep the gift or steal the gift that somebody else chose. So it's like Let's Make A Deal. The person with the least expensive gift gets elminated after each round. So you have to guess which gift is worth the most and get it. So it's like the Price is Right. Then in gut-wrenching drama you get down to the last two contestants who will have accumulated three gifts each. In the final round, it's like the Prisoner's Dilemma.

You can either say. I'm Keeping Mine or Take It All.

If both players say I'm Keeping Mine, they both keep what they have. If both players say Take It All, they both lose everything. But if one player says I'm Keeping Mine and the other player says Take It All, the Taker gets all and the Keeper keeps nothing.

So obviously this is all about stealing and lying. What a brilliant game. What heartless cruelty.

Mandel gets the contestants to tell their story about how badly they need the money and how it will change their lives if they win. But in the end, it's all about winning. Brilliant. You basically have people up there swearing to God that it's such a blessing that they can keep what they won so far. Calculating, conniving liars. This is what a game show is supposed to be.